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SHANGHAI, China - Wal-Mart is buying a 35 percent stake in a company that operates Trust-Mart, a major Chinese discount chain, as international competitors jostle for position in China's rapidly growing retail market.

Wal-Mart may eventually take managerial control of Taiwan-based Bounteous Co., which operates 101 Trust-Mart stores in 34 major cities in China, the U.S. retail giant said in a statement Tuesday.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Newspapers last year speculated a takeover of Trust-Mart would cost Wal-Mart about $1 billion.

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SHANGHAI, China - Wal-Mart is buying a 35 percent stake in a company that operates Trust-Mart, a major Chinese discount chain, as international competitors jostle for position in China's rapidly growing retail market.

Wal-Mart may eventually take managerial control of Taiwan-based Bounteous Co., which operates 101 Trust-Mart stores in 34 major cities in China, the U.S. retail giant said in a statement Tuesday.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Newspapers last year speculated a takeover of Trust-Mart would cost Wal-Mart about $1 billion.

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WASHINGTON (AP) The top aide to convicted former Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty Monday to federal conspiracy charges stemming from a congressional bribery scandal that downed his boss.

Smiling nervously at times, William Heaton, 28, acknowledged accepting a golf trip to Scotland, expensive meals, and tickets to sporting events between 2002 and 2004 as payoffs for helping clients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Heaton worked for Ney, R-Ohio, from September 2001 to July 2006, ultimately serving as his chief of staff.

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WASHINGTON – The top aide to convicted former Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty Monday to federal conspiracy charges stemming from a congressional bribery scandal that downed his boss.

Smiling nervously at times, William Heaton, 28, acknowledged accepting a golf trip to Scotland, expensive meals, and tickets to sporting events between 2002 and 2004 as payoffs for helping clients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Heaton worked for Ney, R-Ohio, from September 2001 to July 2006, ultimately serving as his chief of staff.

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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will never suspend uranium enrichment as demanded by the West, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Tuesday after world powers agreed to work on a new U.N. resolution over Tehran's atomic plans.

The five permanent U.N. Security Council members -- the United States, France, Russia, China and Britain -- plus Germany met in London on Monday against a background of rising international tension over Iran's atomic plans.

``Suspending uranium enrichment is an illegal and illegitimate demand ... and it will never happen,'' Mottaki was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.

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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Volvo , the world's number two truck maker, said on Tuesday it had agreed to buy the road development machinery business of U.S. diversified manufacturer Ingersoll-Rand in a $1.3 billion cash deal.

The Gothenburg-based firm, which besides trucks makes buses, engines and a wide range of construction gear, said the deal also included 20 dealerships in North America as well as distribution arms in Europe and Russia.

Volvo said the acquisition fits with its strategy to expand in the $4 billion market for road construction equipment as well as strengthening its position in the North American materials handling equipment market.

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SAPPORO, Japan - Defending champion Katerina Neumannova of the Czech Republic won the women's 10-kilometer cross-country event Tuesday at the Nordic World Ski Championships.

Neumannova crossed the finish line in 23 minutes, 58.4 seconds to give the Czech Republic its third medal of the championships.

"I started off kind of slow at the beginning and knew I had to pick it up," said Neumannova. "I had some energy left at the end and was surprised I had such a big lead."

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TOKYO (AP) Col. Masanobu Tsuji was a fanatical Japanese militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres of Chinese civilians and complicity in the Bataan Death March. And then he became a U.S. spy. Newly declassified CIA records, released by the U.S. National Archives and examined by The Associated Press, document more fully than ever how Tsuji and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by U.S. intelligence in the early days of the Cold War. The documents also show how ineffective the effort was, in the CIA's view.

The records, declassified in 2005 and 2006 under an act of Congress in tandem with Nazi war crime-related files, fill in many of the blanks in the previously spotty documentation of the occupation authority's intelligence arm and its involvement with Japanese ultra-nationalists and war criminals, historians say.

In addition to Tsuji, who escaped Allied prosecution and was elected to parliament in the 1950s, conspicuous figures in U.S.-funded operations included mob boss and war profiteer Yoshio Kodama, and Takushiro Hattori, former private secretary to Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister hanged as a war criminal in 1948.

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LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. (AP) - David B. Ast, a New York dentist who helped show the effectiveness of fluoridated drinking water in preventing tooth decay, has died. He was 104.

Ast died Feb. 3 of heart failure at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, where he had lived for several decades, said his daughter, Jill Michtom.

In 1944, Ast began a 10-year study of fluoridation that bolstered the use of fluoride in public drinking water to prevent tooth decay.

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HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba's annual extravaganza celebrating its world-renowned cigars, which began Monday, could be devoid of star power this year. No Hollywood personalities have said they will attend the 9th Habanos Festival and acting President Raul Castro, who doesn't care for cigars, is not expected to show. His far-more-famous brother Fidel may not even be well enough to autograph humidors for charity auction during the five-day event. But the true stars of the festival - premium, hand-rolle...

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SHANGHAI, China ? Wal-Mart is buying a 35 percent stake in a company that operates Trust-Mart, a major Chinese discount chain, as international competitors jostle for position in China's rapidly growing retail market.

Wal-Mart may eventually take managerial control of Taiwan-based Bounteous Co., which operates 101 Trust-Mart stores in 34 major cities in China, the U.S. retail giant said in a statement Tuesday.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Newspapers last year speculated a takeover of Trust-Mart would cost Wal-Mart about $1 billion.

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Here is the type of player Lightning general manager Jay Feaster hopes to land before today's 3 p.m. trade deadline:

A good skater with a nose for the puck. Tough, feisty, a disturber, someone not afraid to use his body on the forecheck and grind in the corners. If he chips in offensively on the third or fourth line, so much the better.

Even if Feaster stands pat, he has started transforming the personality of the team from one that relied almost solely on skill and finesse to one that complements its silk with sandpaper.

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Some neighbors in the Lakemont area of Bellevue are feeling blessed that someone goes to work really early in the morning.

The worker was Valeriy Palanchuk, 42, who was working at 4 a.m. Monday delivering The Seattle Times.

Palanchuk smelled natural gas but couldn't tell where it was originating. He kept sniffing as he made his delivery rounds and eventually found the leak next to a meter box in the 4400 block of 162nd Court Southeast.

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SHANGHAI, China ? Wal-Mart is buying a 35 percent stake in a company that operates Trust-Mart, a major Chinese discount chain, as international competitors jostle for position in China's rapidly growing retail market.

Wal-Mart may eventually take managerial control of Taiwan-based Bounteous Co., which operates 101 Trust-Mart stores in 34 major cities in China, the U.S. retail giant said in a statement Tuesday.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Newspapers last year speculated a takeover of Trust-Mart would cost Wal-Mart about $1 billion.

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In an earlier version of this story, the headline incorrectly stated that the CIA and not the G-2 intelligence service had recruited Japanese war criminals to spy for the U.S.

TOKYO (AP) - Col. Masanobu Tsuji was a fanatical Japanese militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres of Chinese civilians and complicity in the Bataan Death March. And then he became a U.S. spy. Newly declassified CIA records, released by the U.S. National Archives and examined by The Associated Press, document more fully than ever how Tsuji and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by U.S. intelligence in the early days of the Cold War. The documents also show how ineffective the effort was, in the CIA's view.

The records, declassified in 2005 and 2006 under an act of Congress in tandem with Nazi war crime-related files, fill in many of the blanks in the previously spotty documentation of the occupation authority's intelligence arm and its involvement with Japanese ultra-nationalists and war criminals, historians say.

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MOSCOW (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin has awarded renowned cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich with a state medal, the Kremlin said Monday. Putin signed a decree awarding Rostropovich with the Order of Service to the Fatherland, First Degree, for his "outstanding contribution to the development of world music and many years of creative activity," the presidential press service said. Rostropovich, 79, was hospitalized earlier this month for unspecified reasons - first in Paris and t...

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SALT LAKE CITY -- Two-time Olympian Rulon Gardner and two Utah men were rescued by a fisherman Sunday after surviving a small plane crash in Utah.

Officials said Gardner was a passenger in the Cirrus SR 22 along with pilot Randy Brooks and his brother, Leslie Brooks. The plane was flying low when it struck the water. All three men were able to get out of the plane before it sank.

According to officials, the three men swam for more than an hour in 44-degree water before reaching shore and then spent the night without shelter.

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Iran said it had "no brake and no reverse gear," prompting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to say Tehran needed a "stop button" for a program the West fears is geared to producing nuclear arms.Monday, February 26, 2007

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LONDON (Reuters) - Western powers meet in London on Monday to discuss tightening U.N. sanctions on Iran amid a flurry of tough and sometimes colorful talk between Washington and Tehran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

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In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

More than 30 years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be an energy source that can help save our planet from another potential disaster: the serious negative impacts of climate change.

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.

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TEHRAN, IRAN: Iran resists widespread calls to stop nuclear program

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday his nation's nuclear program was like a train without brakes or a reverse gear. He also repeated his call for further negotiations over the issue, saying the time for "bullying" had expired.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded that Iran needs "a stop button."

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Negotiating isn't always done in words. Sunday, Iran launched a suborbital rocket, a day before the Security Council was to weigh more sanctions on Iran's nuclear enrichment. Was this a shot across the West's bow? Or partly a warm-up for striking a deal?

At the least, the 94-mile-high launch was a wake-up call about Iran's potential as a global military player, much like Russia's 1957 Sputnik launch escalated the cold war and started the space race.

The rocket itself, perhaps built with North Korean help, could be converted within a few years to a type that delivers a warhead 3,000 miles away. That would help lift Iran's military posture from purely defensive to a first-strike capability.

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LOS ANGELES -- A highly drug-resistant form of tuberculosis has killed about 85 percent of South African HIV patients who have become infected, presenting one of the most worrisome problems in HIV and tuberculosis control, researchers reported Sunday.

About 330 cases of extensively drug-resistant, or ?XDR,? tuberculosis have been verified in South Africa over the past year, said Karin Weyer of the South African Medical Research Council in Pretoria.

The outbreak began in KwaZulu-Natal province last year and is found throughout the country, she said.

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As six world powers prepared for a meeting Monday to respond to Tehran's defiant nuclear enrichment activities, the Iranian president remained undeterred Sunday, saying the nuclear program had no reverse gear.

That comment, by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, drew a simple retort from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said: "They don't need a reverse gear. They need a stop button."

Rice emphasized that she remained personally ready for high-level talks--anytime, anywhere, on any topic--if Tehran would simply halt its nuclear work.

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ATHENS, Greece The latest international row over oil is just one more episode in the black stuff's long and continuing entanglement with power politics.

The internationally recognized Greek Cypriot-ruled Cyprus Republic, a European Union member, is taking bids from multinational energy firms to drill for oil and natural gas offshore. Large, though still unproven reserves, are believed to be at stake.

Turkey and its dependent "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" (which is recognized only by Ankara since invading Turkish troops created it in 1974) object. They insist that both the Nicosia Cypriot regime and its ally, the Greek government in Athens, should desist until final settlement of the 33-year-old partition of Cyprus. The Turkish side insists it will drill in the same locations, and even implies possible military backup for its own efforts.

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The five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany likely will consider restrictions on trade and arms for Iran when they meet Monday to discuss new ways to pressure Tehran to suspend parts of its nuclear program.

Senior representatives of the six nations were to meet at London's Foreign Office to discuss how to respond to Iran's failure to respect a U.N. deadline to halt its uranium enrichment work.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency confirmed Thursday that Iran had ignored a Security Council ultimatum to freeze enrichment -- a possible pathway to nuclear arms -- and had instead expanded its program.

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The demand for Scotch in expanding markets such as China and India is driving investment in distilleries and storage.

February 26, 2007

Diageo's decision to spend $78 million on the first large malt whiskey distillery to be built in Scotland for a generation is testament to the growing appeal of Scotch overseas.

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LONDON - The five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany likely will consider restrictions on trade and arms for Iran when they meet Monday to discuss new ways to pressure Tehran to suspend parts of its nuclear program.

Senior representatives of the six nations were to meet at midday at London's Foreign Office to discuss how to respond to Iran's failure to respect a U.N. deadline to halt its uranium enrichment work.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency confirmed Thursday that Iran had ignored a Security Council ultimatum to freeze enrichment - a possible pathway to nuclear arms - and had instead expanded its program.

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INVERNESS, Calif. - If history hadn't gotten in the way, Andrew Romanoff could have been the emperor of Russia.

But as things turned out, the mustachioed grandnephew of the ill-fated last czar spends his time painting whimsical, folk-artish renderings of his unusual upbringing in a dethroned royal family onto "Shrinky Dinks," the plastic children's toy that shrinks in the oven.

His whimsical pieces, which chronicle daily life, are currently being shown at San Francisco's Gallery 16. Along with his recent memoir, "The Boy Who Would be Tsar: The Art of Prince Andrew Romanoff," they tell the story of the 20th century's great wars and political convulsions from the very intimate perspective of a child at the center of it all.

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LONDON ? The five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany likely will consider restrictions on trade and arms for Iran when they meet Monday to discuss new ways to pressure Tehran to suspend parts of its nuclear program.

Senior representatives of the six nations were to meet at midday at London's Foreign Office to discuss how to respond to Iran's failure to respect a U.N. deadline to halt its uranium enrichment work.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency confirmed Thursday that Iran had ignored a Security Council ultimatum to freeze enrichment ? a possible pathway to nuclear arms ? and had instead expanded its program.

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WASHINGTON - The top U.S. and Russian diplomats on Sunday tried to play down concerns about a Cold War revival set off by Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Washington is fostering a global arms race.

But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov could not put aside disagreements about a proposed U.S. missile defense system in Europe.

Lavrov wrote in Sunday's Washington Post that Putin's recent remarks have been widely misinterpreted.

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WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.

The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy's review also found statistically significant increases in the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas.

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The Hapsburg and Ottoman empires are much missed today. They solved problems in the Balkans and Middle East that, reopened today, have spilled much blood.

The Kosovo issue divides Serbia and Albania, both under Ottoman control in modern times. The Serbs' 20th century misfortunes derive in part from their long and anomalous position as a major Orthodox Christian people under the domination of an Islamic power.

They would have been better under the Hapsburg Empire, the final political incarnation of the Holy Roman Empire formed by Charlemagne and Pope Leo III in 800 A.D. It was the political counterpart of the papal religious realm, the emperor considered to possess legitimate authority in the realm of government with the pope's authority limited to "the things of God."

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My first reaction upon hearing that North Korea had agreed to take steps toward nuclear disarmament was: not again! Hadn't Pyongyang promised Jimmy Carter, during his ill-advised 1994 "peace" mission, that it would freeze its nuclear weapons program and dismantle existing nuclear facilities? Didn't North Korea break that promise? In 2000, hadn't Secretary of State Madeleine Albright toasted the "dear leader" Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang only to be disappointed later when his duplicity was again revealed? When will these people realize that communists lie?

Now comes the Bush administration's announcement of what appears - appears - to be a breakthrough. This time things might - might - be different, especially because the initial agreement does not rely solely on Kim's word or on U.S. pressure.

As outlined to me in a telephone conversation with Deputy National Security Adviser J.D. Crouch, this agreement is the result of pressure exerted by five countries -- the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea -- something critics said would never happen. Critics said that Kim would never agree to six-party talks and that the Bush administration was making a big mistake in not accepting Kim's demand for bilateral negotiations. President Bush held out and, so far, his strategy seems to be working.

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Watching George W. Bush struggle with foreign policy is like watching a rerun of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." You never know which personality, the good guy or the bad guy, is going to prevail.

The problem is, neither does he. Like the protagonist in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic clash of dual personalities, George Bush is capable of doing both good and evil, often at the same time. Look at the contrast between Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

From the beginning, Bush's policy in Iraq was pure Mr. Hyde: Bomb first, ask questions later. No time for diplomacy. No time for U.N. inspectors to finish their job. No time to discover the truth about WMD or Saddam Hussein's connection to Osama bin Laden and Sept. 11 (none). Bush insisted we had to hurry up and invade Iraq in order to teach other unfriendly regimes in the Arab world a lesson.

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HOUSTON ? At Southwestern National Bank on Bellaire Boulevard, customers can enjoy a free cup of hot tea or coffee and pick up Chinese-language newspapers. Across the street, at MetroBank, customers are just as likely to be asked ?How are you?? in English as ?Ni hao ma?? in Mandarin Chinese.

And during celebrations for Chinese New Year, dancers dressed in a lion costume will be spotted at several Bellaire Boulevard banks that were designed following the guidelines of the Chinese philosophy of feng shui.

Along a less than mile-long stretch of Bellaire Boulevard near Beltway 8, nearly a dozen ethnic and mainstream banks cater primarily to Asian entrepreneurs and residents.

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WASHINGTON — President Bush says he isn't looking for a fight, but the question won't go away: Is the United States headed for war with Iran's Islamic rulers?

Increasing tensions with Iran over its nuclear program and actions in Iraq have fueled speculation that Bush may be paving the way for military action. With U.S. forces tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, no one expects a ground invasion, but analysts at both ends of the political spectrum put little stock in Bush's insistence that he's focused only on diplomacy.

"I still believe, at the end of the day, that he will bomb the Iranian [nuclear] facilities," said Joshua Muravchik, a neoconservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank. "When he does it — if he does it — it will be wildly unpopular. He certainly at least wants to be able to say convincingly, 'I tried everything else,' " Muravchik said.

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JERUSALEM, Feb. 25 ? The Israeli Army put the West Bank city of Nablus under curfew today in one of the largest military operations there in two years.

The Israeli forces discovered a second explosives laboratory in Nablus in as many days, containing pipe bombs, explosive materials and a hand-held Lau guided missile and launcher that apparently had belonged to the Israeli Army, Maj. Avital Liebovich said.

It was not immediately clear whether the missile had been stolen or purchased.

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SAPPORO, Japan - Russia's Olga Savialova won the women's 15-kilometer cross-country pursuit event Sunday at the Nordic World Ski Championships.

Savialova crossed the finish line with a time of 41 minutes, 27.5 seconds to capture Russia's first gold medal of the meet.

Katerina Neumannova, who won the silver medal in the Turin Olympics, was 0.5 seconds back while Norway's Kristin Stoermer Steira was third for the bronze.

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Call it an automatic rifle. Call it a submachine gun. Call it "the $10 weapon of mass destruction" or "the African credit card."

Call it the AK-47.

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Despite economic liberalization, it's likely the communist regime will endure well into the future.

By James Mann, JAMES MANN is author in residence at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and the author of "The China Fantasy," published this month.

February 25, 2007

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WASHINGTON — The top U.S. and Russian diplomats on Sunday tried to play down concerns about a Cold War revival set off by Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Washington is fostering a global arms race.

But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov could not put aside disagreements about a proposed U.S. missile defense system in Europe.

Lavrov wrote in Sunday's Washington Post that Putin's recent remarks have been widely misinterpreted.

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SAPPORO, Japan - Hannu Manninen won his second gold medal of the Nordic World Ski Championships, anchoring Finland to the gold medal in the Nordic combined team 20-kilometer event on Sunday.

Manninen, who won his first individual gold medal on Friday in the 7.5-kilometer sprint, surged ahead of Germany's Bjorn Kircheisen on the final leg of the cross-country race to ensure another gold for Finland.

Finland finished with a time of 49 minutes, 14.9 seconds - 28.4 seconds ahead of Germany. Norway took the bronze a further 1:12.0 back.

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TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Sunday it successfully tested a rocket, apparently part of its drive to launch five satellites into orbit by 2010.

The announcement, made on state-run television, didn't provide details. Iran's Science and Technology and Defense Ministries built the craft, said Mohsen Bahrami, head of Iran's Space Research Center.

Bahrami provided no other details beyond saying that Iran successfully launched what he called a space rocket or space missile.

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TEHRAN, Iran Iran says it's successfully launched a space rocket.A somewhat murky announcement on government television today says the rocket had reached space. It appears to be part of Iran's stated goal of launching commercial satellites.The head of Iran's Space Research Center says the craft was built by the Science and Technology ministry and the Defense ministry.Iran launched its first satellite in a joint project with Russia in 2005 and has said it hopes to launch four more satellites by 2...

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RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Carolina Hurricanes acquired right wing Anson Carter from the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday for a fifth-round 2008 draft pick, giving the defending Stanley Cup champions a scoring threat to replace two injured forwards.

Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford was looking to replace left wingers Cory Stillman and Erik Cole and bolster the Hurricanes' push to make the Eastern Conference playoffs. Stillman is on injured reserve with a knee injury, and Cole will miss two to four weeks after suffering an injured hip.

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Amid the sudden chill of an otherwise mild winter, Feb. 21 will mark Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season.

Though Ash Wednesday occurs 46 days before Easter, Lent is considered only 40 days, because Sundays falling in the Lenten period are not considered days of penance.

Immanuel Lutheran Church pastor Ralph Blomenberg says he thinks of Lent as less of a ritual and more of an opportunity to remember Jesus' sacrifice and look at our own lives.

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SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator plans to visit the United States within days for follow-up talks on a recent disarmament deal, South Korean news reports said Saturday.

The North's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan is expected to arrive in San Francisco on Thursday en route to New York for meetings with his U.S. counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

If Kim's trip takes place, it would be the first U.S. visit by North Korea's main nuclear envoy since the international standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions flared in late 2002.

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PARIS - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a last push Saturday to win European support for lifting a crippling international aid embargo in talks with French President Jacques Chirac.

However, there were no signs of concessions by Chirac or any of the European leaders Abbas visited this week in their demands for the Palestinians' new coalition government to recognize Israel before the embargo ends.

"We hope that the embargo will be lifted," Abbas said following his meeting with the French president. "If not, all we can undertake would be useless ... and the Palestinian people would continue to suffer and the sanctions would continue to cause damage."

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LONDON - Israel opened negotiations to fly through U.S. controlled airspace in Iraq to carry out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a British newspaper reported Saturday. Israel's deputy defense minister denied the claim.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper quoted an unnamed Israeli defense official as saying the talks were aimed at planning for all scenarios, including any future decision to target Iran's nuclear program.

Israeli bombers would need a corridor through U.S.-administered airspace in Iraq to carry out any strikes, the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

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KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's main opposition leader, on the eve of a trip to the U.S., warned Saturday that the former Soviet republic is at risk of sliding back under the influence of Russia.

Yulia Tymoshenko said she will reassure U.S. leaders on her visit starting Sunday that the Orange Revolution team which set Ukraine on its pro-Western path has reunited and will provide tough opposition to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's Russian-leaning government.

"Our union today is not due to circumstances, it is not a spontaneous decision," Tymoshenko told The Associated Press after signing an agreement Saturday to rejoin forces with President Viktor Yushchenko's party.

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TOKYO - Col. Masanobu Tsuji was a fanatical Japanese militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres of Chinese civilians and complicity in the Bataan Death March. And then he became a U.S. spy. Newly declassified CIA records, released by the U.S. National Archives and examined by The Associated Press, document more fully than ever how Tsuji and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by U.S. intelligence in the early days of the Cold War. The documents also show how ineffective the effort was, in the CIA's view.

The records, declassified in 2005 and 2006 under an act of Congress in tandem with Nazi war crime-related files, fill in many of the blanks in the previously spotty documentation of the occupation authority's intelligence arm and its involvement with Japanese ultra-nationalists and war criminals, historians say.

In addition to Tsuji, who escaped Allied prosecution and was elected to parliament in the 1950s, conspicuous figures in U.S.-funded operations included mob boss and war profiteer Yoshio Kodama, and Takushiro Hattori, former private secretary to Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister hanged as a war criminal in 1948.

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PARIS (Reuters) - France told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday it would be ``disposed to co-operate'' with a planned government involving Abbas's Fatah and Hamas and seek support for it from other Western powers.

But Abbas, ending a European tour in Paris, received no clear indications the EU would end a blockade that has caused economic hardship in the Palestinian territories. The sanctions were imposed to induce the militant Hamas group to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace deals.

``If this government is formed on the basis of the Mecca agreement, I told the Palestinian President France will be disposed to cooperate with it and that our country will also plead in that direction within the European Union and with other partners in the international community,'' French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told a news conference.

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Sergei B. Ivanov walked in late to the holiday performance of the army?s Academy of Song and Dance. He sat in a seat saved for him between a mop-haired boy and a girl with a fluffy white ribbon in her hair. He watched, stiffly tapping his foot, as Soldier Ivan danced with fairies on his way to saving the children?s New Year?s presents from the old witch Baba Yaga. Grandfather Frost Russia?s Santa Claus arrived in the end, of course, with gifts for the children in the audience, sons and daughters...

?Dear friends,? Ivanov began, his voice tinny by comparison. His face appeared pinched, his lips as thin as the hair parted sharply on the left. Pale, trim, dressed in a dark suit with an open collar, he looked like a secret agent. Which, in fact, is what he was in Finland and Kenya (and maybe in Sweden and England), working for the K.G.B. as the Soviet Union was collapsing. As history shows, a former intelligence officer might be just what Russia wants in a leader.

?It is very pleasant for me today to share your holiday because all adults ? and even the minister of defense ? were kids sometime,? he went on, awkwardly. ?And I remember it well: the smell of fir-tree needles, the fir tree, the smell of mandarins? ? famous for ripening in the depth of Russia?s winter ? ?the fir-tree decorations, which I could not wait to get out of the box and help the adults decorate the New Year tree. I will never forget it.? He is not a natural politician, at least not a po...

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CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 24 ? Venezuela?s arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America?s largest weapons buyer and placing it ahead of other major purchasers in international arms markets like Pakistan and Iran.

Venezuelan military and government officials here say the arms acquisitions, which include dozens of fighter jets and attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, are needed to circumvent a ban by the United States on sales of American weapons to the country.

They also argue that Venezuela must strengthen its defenses to counter potential military aggression from the United States.

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